


Sherlock in Los Angeles

by LadyHeliotrope



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 06:21:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 7,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22509217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyHeliotrope/pseuds/LadyHeliotrope
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

**Duet for Violin and Viola in A Major  
**

The 101 freeway between Los Angeles and Ventura was sparsely populated at eleven o'clock at night, which meant it was the best time for all-consuming construction.

This was a minor inconvenience but not a concern for Alé Melendez, who had forgotten about said construction until she ran across it on her way to Santa Barbara.

Pumping a fifteen-pound rock up and down (weight training) to the beat of a song she'd fallen in love with in a lesbian bar in Amsterdam (not dancing), she was thinking primarily about how she needed to renew her CPR certification from the Red Cross.

The construction traffic was slightly more inconvenient for the individual in the car behind her, who didn't notice the red lights ahead and barreled into the back of her sturdy Honda.

Shocked but not too deeply rattled, she cursed loudly and flipped the switch of her left-hand blinker. The individual behind her, sheepishly, followed her into the nearest left-hand shoulder of the freeway. This was simple enough, though they had to wait until they were out of the bottleneck traffic. The shoulder happened to be ample and they were in the fast lane anyway.

She didn't let herself curse at him, nor did she allow herself to slam the door of her car too hard. It was clear, however, that he'd been far too distracted by his blackberry; even as he slowly emerged from the front seat of his once-svelte, now-totaled mini BMW.

_Gay_ , she instantly assessed his tousled dark hair, collared shirt (top unbuttoned) neat-cut sports jacket, and smart black cap-toe Oxfords. _Or just cultured._

Ascertaining that he was not a gangbanger and probably not directly dangerous, she turned on the pocket flashlight and cast a glance over the damage. His car was probably undriveable, but her car had barely sustained more than a dent. She was blessed to have an SUV.

Then she turned her attention back to the man, and the remainder of her examination was near instantaneous, made with the glimpses of clarity that came with the headlights of passing cars.

_Santa Monica?_ No, she realized, he was driving a rental. Probably he came from the East Coast, then, given the luxurious but totally inappropriate long coat strewn across its passenger seat.

_Arrived today, probably LAX_. Anyone driving around with a scarf and coat to Los Angeles in a mid-January heat spell couldn't have been in the area very long.

_Prideful. Likes to keep up an image. Or obsessive-compulsively habitual._ She noted the slightest scent of sweat as she approached him. He must have been wearing said coat and scarf until he simply couldn't bear the heat anymore.

_You'd think he was an academic. Or a lawyer._ She noted the leather briefcase, very slim, legal size. _Or something else._

_Typical coffee junkie._ A Venti Starbucks hot cup sat in the cupholder, but since there was not much in the way of splattering despite the impact, it seemed to be already gone.

_Musician...?_ He bore callouses on his left fingertips as he waved her impatiently away from looking over his shoulder, but none on the right fingertips.

He had said nothing yet, so she broke the silence.

"I am sorry for the misfortune that has befallen us."

Too many years of working with the LA legal system taught her to never accept the blame for a traffic accident or other misdemeanor. It could later bite one in the ass.

"I don't suppose you know a reputable tow service?"

His voice immediately betrayed the fact that he had lived most of his adult life in Britain.

"I have a number. Do you want to call it?"

"Would you?" he asked imperiously. "I don't care to talk on the phone."

She rankled at being commanded by this stranger, with such overstated authority in his voice, but she also knew to choose her battles wisely, so she pointedly obeyed. She felt every fiber of her being want to echo the music by Sak Noel still blaring from her car stereo: _All day...all night...all day...all night...What the FUCK!_

Instead of turning it down to make the call, she stepped a bit away from the cars, did the business, and stepped back again, trying to not let herself get too passive-aggressive.

"Curious: may I ask who you're texting?"

"You may ask, but you may also receive no answer," came his reply, dry and sardonic.

"Do you need to be such a hard-ass?" she demanded, losing patience. "This isn't fun for either of us, you know. This is really, really inconvenient."

"And you imagine it isn't for me?"

Chance suggested that probably, if he'd come all the way out to LA from London in one day, whatever it was he was headed to was probably more urgent, and Alé could empathize. But she had _very_ urgent business in Santa Barbara.

"Ok, so aren't you at least going to call the rental company? I hope you have good insurance."

Without drawing his eyes away from his smartphone, he stooped and grabbed a flyer from the dashboard, pressing it into her hands. It said, _Enterprize! The best way to get where you're going_. And it had a significant amount of paperwork inside, as well as a prominently placed phone number to "call for information" and "help on the road."

And he was giving it to _her_.

This was intolerable to Alé, ever the vigilant feminist, and threw the folder on the ground with a thump.

"I'm not your servant just because I'm a woman," she declared, but suddenly as a car passed at 80mph, the folder flew open and half the papers flew across the freeway.

"Hell!"

This irritated him enough to put his phone down, where she read (at an angle) a text message in the process of 'sending': _I see she's a lesbian who owns a wolfhound. Social worker. Pray for my manhood. -SH_

Affronted but secretly pleased that she appeared so intimidating, Alé snarled, "Your balls are in no danger, mister, but shit, if I hadn't had that anger management course..."

He was quick to slide his phone in his pocket.

"Give me that," he said, snatching the folder from the ground. Those papers that remained were in no danger of flying away, however, since she already stomped her boot on it for their security. At least the folder cover with its important telephone number was intact, albeit dusty.

He got his phone out again, typed in the numbers to make the call, and kept pressing buttons until he apparently got to an operator, his frustration evident in his terse, jerking movements.

Apparently, after ten minutes of discussion that involved his scathing remarks and unhappy protestations on the other end of the line, he ended the call, shaking his head.

"They deny even having rented the car to me," he said, his tone acerbic. "I don't know what's wrong with this country."

"There's lots wrong with this country," Alé replied. "Well, I think I'm going to go now. If you like, I could give you a ride to someplace that isn't a dark freeway so you can figure out this shit in someplace a bit more safe."

"Oh, delightful, a greasy spoon," he said joylessly. "'American home cooking.' Weak drip coffee. A smelly one-stall unisex bathroom. Why on earth are we waiting?"

Alé sighed. "Mister, I'm being nice because I want to be."

"No," he disagreed, back to texting again, no doubt telling his gay lover uncomplimentary observations about, she imagined, the coffee stains on her pants-leg, the smell of the dandruff shampoo she used, the state of her acne (at forty one!), and probably the bulge in her denim jacket-pocket that hid an unlicensed pistol.

Or, she reflected as the club song continued to pound from her car: _Johnny, La gente esta muy loca...What the fuck! -SH_

"No," he said again, dispassionately, "You're being nice because you _force_ yourself to be."

"A damned sight better than being an ass to someone who just offered to help you out."

He didn't reply, obviously because he didn't care, she thought, until she saw him put away the phone and make eye contact with her.

"You're absolutely right, Miss Melendez. My behavior is beyond questionable. If you'd be so kind, I would be very thankful for a ride."

Despite herself, she smiled...he undoubtedly noticed the name badge she forgot to take off after leaving the office...but only allowing a corner of her mouth to go up in a smirk.

"Why, don't mind if I do," she said, dropping into a BBC British accent that was reminiscent of Christiane Amanpour.

So saying, she motioned that he should get into the passenger side, taking off her name badge and pocketing it immediately.

* * *

Just trying on a new coat. Like it?


	2. Chapter 2

So, how far are you going?" Alé asked him once they were in the car. She turned the volume of the music down, but was pleased to notice that the next song on the deck was No Doubt's _Hella Good_.

_No doubt his snobbish sensibilities could use some ruffling,_ she thought to herself. _He's just a huge bundle of negative energy_.

She could practically feel the air pressure growing heavier in his presence, and she touched the prayer-card of St. Joseph taped to her flip-visor with a silent Hail Mary to buoy her mood.

He didn't seem to mind as much as she'd hoped that he would, however; he just slid the passenger seat back as far as he could to accommodate his long legs and placed his folded coat and scarf on the floor.

He also tossed, without permission, his briefcase and small carry-on suitcase into the messy back-seat of her car.

"Santa Barbara," he said carefully, as though he'd never been there and wasn't sure if she would know where it was.

"Oh! Funny, that's where I'm headed. Whereabouts?"

"Police station."

"Ok." She was not too surprised to hear that. "May I ask what for?"

"I won't answer that," he said, and he was already texting again. "Idiot," he added under his breath.

It required another mental recitation of Hail Mary to prevent her from decking him.

_Santa Maria, madre de dios, juevos por nosotros peccadores, ahora y a l'hora de nostra muerte._

It was _not_ difficult for her to ascertain that he was a non-talkative type; they said nothing further for the next half hour. It was just at the point that the silence was getting comfortable that the delicate finger-dancing on his smartphone paused between quadrilles and he asked, "So, your emergency in Santa Barbara. Could it be about the recently widowed relative about whose coronary dysfunctions you have been concerned of late?"

She shook her head, wondering how he knew about her great-aunt Marta and her heart conditions. Probably he'd caught a glimpse of the funeral program of her great-uncle in her glove compartment and decided that she looked sickly.

"Any other day I'd be doing this kind of thing for my family, but not this time. It involves a client. As you correctly understood, I am a licensed clinical social worker."

He scoffed. "Elementary deduction."

"I'm sure," she replied dismissively. She didn't like men who thought they were impressive, especially when they pretended that they knew and understood her. " _But_ you're wrong about the wolfhound," she added, "That was a client's. I have no time for my own pets."

"But you were thinking of acquiring one since your break-up a few weeks ago."

_He's right about that_ , she admitted, electing to remain silent, as she couldn't lie but she didn't want to act amazed either, and a nonreply would be confirmation enough. It was clear enough how he'd known, though most people would probably not notice the tightness of her jeans that came with the six or seven pounds of lonely binge-eating in front of the television watching _telanovelas_ on recent weeknights.

Or the fact that she'd not touched-up her roots and the brown of her natural hair color was starting to show through the red dye, the devil-may-care way her bra showed from beneath an ill-fitting camisole, or the bottle of Lexapro in her cupholder, or the pink hoodie that was decidedly _not_ hers draped over the back of her seat within perfect reach to sniff for the comfort of the scent.

Or innumerable other signs of which she was probably not even cognizant. Undoubtedly the fact that she had been fraternizing with said client's dog so enthusiastically was testament to her loneliness as well as the fact that she _had_ been considering the investment in a pet of her own.

He didn't seem to care or notice the pain that she felt color her face, and she felt somewhat violated, as well as rather angry.

Before she could say anything, however, he presented her with a question.

"Have you ever heard of _Un Ministerio Que Responda a la Agresión_?" he asked, looking comfortable and smug as he continued to type unabated on his phone. She felt like smacking him.

<


	3. Chapter 3

Have you ever heard of _Un Ministerio Que Responda a la Agresión_?" he asked, looking comfortable and smug as he continued to type unabated on his phone. She felt like smacking him.

"Would this 'UMQRA' be a CBO?"

"Come again?"

"A community-based organization?"

"You tell me."

The name of the organization sounded both familiar and unfamiliar to Alé, like a song she heard in the grocery store frequently but couldn't name.

"It's a fairly generic title, probably limited to a small community. It actually sounds like a political advocacy group. Maybe an organizing committee. In an area that's got a lowish average income per household."

"Ah."

It wasn't clear if he believed her, so she asked, "What is it that you think you're looking for?"

It took him some time to disengage himself from his texting, whereupon he merely queried, "I'm sorry, what?"

"You heard me."

He didn't look at her. "I have heard that it is a subsidiary of a church program for inner-city addicts," he replied, his tone serious. "The church's program advertises _total recovery_ for their members. Not exactly the most feasible claim," he concluded with a haughty tone that, despite its scorn, suggested he knew the difficulty of addiction recovery too well.

She studied him, and wondered why he was looking for such an organization. Even in the darkness with nothing but the translucent glow of his phone to illuminate his face, she could tell that he himself had been a user, if he was not one presently.

The compulsive meticulousness of his attire contrasted with his sloppy unkempt hair and gaunt appearance; he looked like an individual trying to live down past transgressions of hygiene and prove sobriety to friends and family through the façade of being well-groomed, despite the fact that he cared not one whit for taking care of himself. His frantic, obsessive typing on his phone was no doubt a habit formed originally as a means of tweaking while high.

Moreover, texting was a means of communication that provided a veil between himself and the subject of contact, a tool valuable for circumstances when speech might reveal too easily of a secret case of self-indulgence. So much easier to lie via text message than speech when high. Sharpness of tongue coincided as well with the picture; it bespoke of a negative attitude towards life (frequently an underlying causal factor in addiction) as well as having gotten used to saying things without any restraint (a tendency formed as mind-altering drugs inhibited the filtering process between his mouth and mind). He also had an urgent, electric, impulsive energy to him that suggested he must have driven whoever was next to him in the plane ride across the continent absolutely _loco_.

He did _seem_ to be on a business trip ... but was it perhaps a guise for an embarrassed family who insisted upon a secret rehabilitation abroad to which he was resistant? Or maybe he had AIDs? After all, Santa Barbara was a place for rich folks to retire and eventually die, facilitating the process with its cottage hospital and new-age healing centers.

If that were the case, however, she realized, he would be armed with an address and would not be asking her about whether she knew about the agency. And the name of the agency he sought would be something like "New Hope Health Center." _And_ possible political advocacy groups would never enter the equation.

No, while the coincidence of his using drugs was notable, she decided it was not entirely relevant to his purpose in California; it was clear he expected to be here only for a short visit. Perhaps he was acting as an expert witness for some high-profile case.

"Anyway, I haven't heard of this U.M.Q.R.A.," she said, "but it appears that congratulations are in order."

He frowned. "For what?"

"For beating the habit yourself. Don't deny it; your eyes betray you. But it looks like you haven't quite overcome that _other_ habit."

He cocked his head and looked directly at her, slightly surprised but not bewildered.

"I saw you pick up the nicotine patch wrapper that'd fallen out of your pocket when you got out of your car. Besides, you're as irritable and restless as my cousin's fussy three-year-old ... it's textbook, and I've seen it all before."

Not appearing totally comfortable with being compared to a toddler, he turned his head away, and Alé saw his left hand twist the spongy corner of the worn fabric seat with the ferocity of a hawk grappling a rabbit. And, as the cuff of his shirt-sleeve pulled up, she saw that there was not one but _three_ patches on his left forearm.

She felt an immense amount of pity, and succumbing to this, she said, "There's a brown bag in the glove compartment...give it to me."

He obeyed wordlessly, and she could tell that he knew what was inside before he touched it. It was with great reluctance that he placed the unviolated bag into her hand. Without looking at him, she opened the package, removed one cigarette, and tossed the rest of the package in the back of the car. Then, with a lighter from her cupholder, she lit one cigarette, holding it in her left hand and letting it burn outside the window.

"I'm not an enabler," she insisted as he breathed deeply of the secondhand smoke, she herself keeping her breaths shallow, "and you know that if I said anything to justify what I'm doing at the moment, I'd be morally questionable.

"You don't _deserve_ this smoke because of the stress of this mess, 'cuz it's not a reward to get lung cancer.

"You don't _need_ it to deal with this mess, 'cuz you are plenty capable of dealing with any situation on your own with nothing more than the proper fuel that God gave you in the form of glucose and oxygen and a handful of other elements.

"You can't _blame_ lack of it for this mess, 'cuz it's not appropriate to blame your body for doing the things it needs to do to heal. Or for your passion for texting, which is an addiction in and of itself.

"And lastly, I hope your reason forbids you from _wanting_ it under any circumstances in the first place. Don't you imagine yourself to be a reasonable man?"

"That was a practiced lecture," he said dryly, though it was clear he was chagrined; he wasn't inhaling self-indulgently any longer, and his face was pinched with discomfiture.

"Thank you." She dropped the cigarette onto the freeway without batting an eyelash.


	4. Chapter 4

"I didn't say it was effective," he said, further irritated, "just rehearsed."

"It _was_ effective," she replied, "just like when I'm _drivin'_ wit' the _homeboys!_ "

Being compared to a 'homeboy' moments after being compared to a fussy three-year-old certainly wasn't on the British gentleman's list of usual things, and he seemed undecided between acting bewildered or insulted. Then he opted for amused, and his laughter was a short bark.

He said in a barely-not-mocking tone, "Miss Melendez, I _commend_ you. You are _formidable_."

She could tell that this was almost high praise from such a man as her passenger, though after a moment she realized he was just acting the part he thought she wanted him to play. But she didn't care one way or the other.

"The hardest exteriors develop on those with the softest interiors," Alé answered without pretension.

"Oh, Miss Melendez, you are _so right_. It is rare that someone has struck me so with their insight. You have struck me to the core of my being. _You see through me_ , Miss Melendez. I am, at my essence, a deeply sentimental man, so soft of heart that I must gird myself with plates of iron to protect myself. Pray, forgive me my rudeness. _Do_ tell me more."

She just let his terse sarcasm run until he ran out of things to say, and then, quietly, she replied.

"You can be as rude as you like, mister, but you can do that from the side of the road," she said, unfazed by the sour taste of this man's attitude. He fit into a certain _type_ she was well acquainted with, the type of unpleasant but self-important person who, when confronted with someone they believed too stupid to discern the difference between disingenuousness and sincerity, overtly lied with telling overtones of sarcasm.

With a huff, he changed the topic as easily as turning the pages of a book, not even bothering to argue that he had been entirely sincere; he could tell that he wasn't fooling her.

Strangely, she found that this reaction on his part was a tacit acknowledgement of her intelligence, and somehow she respected him a little bit more in return.

"So, you are a frequent visitor to gang territory," he said, not looking at her, and she sensed that they were progressing to a more mature level of conversation. "What on earth possesses you to pursue that line of work is beyond me; gang-banging is the most pointless game of which I've ever heard. Of course they're raised in a culture of poverty with no expectations or dreams..."

He laid his phone down and pressed the tips of his fingers together, drawing his hands near his face and letting his body relax as it lay back in the seat, apparently overcome with thought.

"I suppose you have a different name by which you gain entry to those circles?"

"La Perra Azul," Alé replied pleasantly, finding it funny that he would know anything about gangs. "In English, 'The Blue Bitch.'"

"Because you wear blue," he observed, turning his head and noting her jeans and denim jacket with disdain. Of course he would look down on her, with his svelte tailored shirt and elegant, wrinkleless trousers and his shiny leather shoes and his dapper blue scarf and his swelteringly-heavy wool coat. "How...imaginative."

"I got street cred, though," she replied, not caring that he wasn't impressed. "Anyway, I'm not alone. I have several 'partners in crime.'"

"A whole clan of social workers, I imagine. Did you graduate from university together?"

"Some of us," she admitted. "Most from USC."

"Mhm," he said, giving her a sideways glance of disbelief.

"Not me, though," she added with a slight smirk. "I'm a Bruin."

"That means...?"

She sighed, remembering he was not from the area, and realizing that he probably did not watch football. "I went to UCLA."

"Oh. That is more what I would expect," he agreed, apparently familiar with the universities' reputations, and she took his tone as one of approval, though she could have been wrong.

"So...yeah." She didn't know how to follow up further, so she took another sip of the glass-bottled vanilla frappauccino she'd bought at the convenience store and tried to swig it in a terrifyingly masculine manner.

He was apparently nonplussed at her impulsive intimidation tactic, possibly because she clanked the bottle against her front teeth a bit too hard and had to bite her fist against the pain.

"And so you're going to Santa Barbara late on a Friday night on behalf of a client because...?"

He didn't really have a right to ask, but the challenge in his voice followed a meekening humiliation, so she replied, rather pouty.

"It isn't a waste of taxpayers' money, if that's what you're implying. I'm not employed by the state."

"Not what I was saying at all," he replied, though he was beginning to get interested in his phone again. "Just curious."

She took a reasonable sip from her bottle of coffee and said nothing, focusing on the black road ahead of them.

Taking her non-response as a sign that she didn't believe him, he added, "The profession of social work in England, in my experience, is very tepid and involves furious middle-class women who've never seen a crime happen in their lives defending snot-nosed brats who broke some equally snot-nosed citizen's windows because it was the _environment_ that somehow _caused_ them to do it."

"That's a total misreading of the profession, mister, and I bet you know it."

He smiled with a smug superiority that confirmed his narcissism, managing at the same time to appear indifferent, his eyes attentive only to the demands of his mobile. "Then tell me how I'm wrong."

"You're not seeing the people in the field if all you're basing your knowledge on is people you see in court. That's just one kind of work, you know. Frequently relegated to the 'middle-class' females who were fine in school but can't bear to see a corpse splattered on the street."

"Indeed," he said, and put his phone in his lap, within reach but not in hand.

She glanced at it, since she could somewhat see the screen, and he turned it over firmly.

"There's so much more to social work than defending disadvantaged children in court and wresting children from their drug-addicted mothers."

"Oh yes," he noted, "that's something else that I've heard quite a lot about. Especially with many people who take themselves to be prospective _clients_."

"It seems you don't take that kind of work, then?" Alé asked to clarify.

"No. I do not take on missing persons or matters involving the judicial system or social services except in truly _extraordinary_ circumstances."

"What constitutes _extraordinary circumstances_?"


	5. Chapter 5

"What constitutes _extraordinary circumstances_?"

A light of amusement danced in his eyes, heightened in effect by the lights of a passing car, and he looked out the window. "It's not an arbitrary decision. Besides, I find that spending any time in court is regularly a waste."

"I wholly agree with you there. So many lawyers are crooks."

"Oh God yes," he said, shaking his head in disgusted agreement, closing his eyes, and leaning the chair back a bit, "In any case, I don't think I'll be bothered with any of them for a while."

_So much for the expert witness theory_ , she thought, looking sideways at him.

"So the answer to your question is," Alé continued, though she didn't know why she was bothering to answer his question, "I'm headed to Santa Barbara because my client, a sixteen-year-old middle-class white girl with her heart already pledged to a sorority, made _friends_ on the internet with a nineteen-year-old criminal who carries a gun and is way too familiar with soft drugs."

She closed her eyes a moment against the flash of some oncoming car that thoughtlessly had its high-beams on, and continued, "He lived in Oregon, though he was apparently always homeless due to parental abuse, and recently he decided that he is in love with my client, who I have been treating for an eating disorder and drug abuse."

The girl was an unremarkable client, really, and one she'd prefer to not have due to her whiny spoiled nature and general uppityness, except that said girl did come with a PPO, and, while it was a hassle to get authorized, it was better than basketfuls of food in lieu of long-overdue (already reduced) cash payments from the underserved Hispanic community members she also took. But none of this need be explained to her stranger, Alé thought ruefully.

"So this kid...he thinks he's gonna be some _macho_ gangster...has been hitchhiking down the coast for the past two days, calling my girl collect and insisting on meeting her. Wants her to be his girlfriend. Despite the fact that she's dating other boys."

The Brit scoffed, but seemed interested. "So obviously you're going as an intermediary with the hopes of diffusing the situation."

"Pretty much, but if he gets tough with me, it's off to prison for him." She sighed. "I did promise to not call his parole officer unless I had due cause. Not strictly ethical...not legal, either. Though those people don't give a shit one way or another, they're so overloaded and they only care about success stories."

She paused. "Man, I'm not being fair, that's a huge generalization. But it's the truth."

He grunted in acknowledgement.

"But ultimately my client wants him in rehab down here because at least here, she's around and can provide him with moral support of some sort. Not the most thought-out plan, but she means well. I've just told her one too many times about systems theory."

Looking more defeated, Alé continued, "Apparently, this kid is very alone in the world, as are so many of these youth. I just don't want him getting in the gangbanging scene if he does come down here. Which he's highly at risk for, without any support system except this teenage girl. But despite her age, she actually knows more than she should about life, but she can't deal with this shit alone."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I dunno," she replied, breathing deeply. "I'm going to do a person in environment assessment, meet the client where the client's at, never push harder for the client than the client wants to push for himself...all that shit we learn in school is the stuff we use. But theory is never as messy as real life."

"...Frequently, I wish life were as clean-cut as theory," he replied, and his agreement sounded very genuine.

"At the same time," Alé said, "if life was like theory, then there would be nothing for people like us to do, you know? We spend our lives shoving things into boxes, and all the time the boxes are coming apart. And because we want to try and make all the boxes stick together, we run around with rolls of duct tape and whack the problems we see. We just never stop to think about what happens when we arrive at the goal...when all the boxes _are_ taped together."

"Well," the Brit said with a snort, "is it not implicit in our efforts that there are an infinity of boxes and only half the required amount of tape?"

"There's a difference between an infinity of boxes that are all alike and an infinity of boxes that are different colors, shapes, and sizes."

"That is the only thing that separates our work from the work of hamsters running on a wheel," he replied with a heavy nod. "Variegation."

"Yeah," Alé said, noticing suddenly that they were experiencing a strange sense of _camaderie_ , "so while we could wish, wish, _wish_ that life were cleaner, neater, tidier, like science or something, with a _hypothesis_ and a _conclusion_ and stuff, in truth we don't want that."

"Or we can reduce things to a phenomenological standpoint and just wish that the experience of the mess was no longer the experience of mess but instead the experience of order. Then again," he continued wistfully, "order is so _boring_ when one arrives at it, at least a few minutes _after_ one has arrived."

"The glorious _high_ of the moment when you reach the orderly solution is what _you_ livefor," said Alé with great empathy.

" _Yes,_ " he hissed, clenching his hands tightly and pulling them close to his chest in an expression of childlike excitement. "Yes, Miss Melendez, it is."

"Me too," she mused, "though I do take a breath sometimes and enjoy the mess, if that makes sense."

"No. It doesn't make sense," he replied without a pause, "Complexity can and _must_ _always_ be reduced to something more solvable. I had a brilliant maths-tutor," he said at once, his eyes lighting up, "who could reduce a whole quantile regression equation into six simple terms. However, there was a substantial, though subtle, error in the logic. It was a tedious affair, and difficult to watch a man I had once respected – _no mere compliment_ \- fall so _gracelessly_ when my opinion was confirmed by a voice from Harvard, a resounding voice of reason over the Atlantic."

"In other words, you caught your professor's mistake." While incredulous, Alé was nonetheless admiring to some degree.

"It was then that my suitability for the academic pursuit of higher-level maths came into question," he stated with dignified brevity and ambiguity with a clear double meaning.

"You got kicked out." She was barely able to contain her laughter.

"Wrong! I wanted out. They just provided the motivation. So I turned to chemistry, with a renewed passion for exactitude." **  
**


	6. Chapter 6

So I turned to chemistry, with a renewed passion for exactitude."

"So that's what you studied in college...or, as you say, 'at university,'" Alé said with a smile, finding this backstory strangely endearing, though immediately classifying him as having a high potential to be classified as having obsessive-compulsive disorder, not to the point of psychosis...but still not _quite_ high-functioning.

"Yes."

It occurred to her that becoming engaged in chemistry might have been where he got his first head full of chemicals, and that made her a little sad.

"That was most informative."

"But no doubt you've associated me with the wrong DSM-IV Axis II disorder, Miss Melendez."

She rolled her eyes. "You _can_ read minds, can't you."

"I imagine that, based on the story, I just told, you think I must be obsessive compulsive, but I swear to you I experience little to no emotion whatsoever, and my capacity for objects-relations is minimal. I'm married to my work and divorced from feelings. Emotions, to me, are the grit on the lens, the fly in the ointment. I am a legitimate sociopath. Albeit high-functioning."

Alé just laughed. "No doubt that's rehearsed."

"...To some extent, yes. But, as you yourself said, that does not mean it's any less legitimate."

"To be specific, I didn't say that what I rehearsed was _legitimate_ , per se, but I'll let that pass, you're trying to prove a point."

"But you still laughed."

"Yeah, 'cause when one makes a personal diagnosis, especially regarding Axis II disorders, one is less evaluating the situation _objectively_ than letting the _subconscious_ seize upon what it _wants_ to be."

This seemed to perturb him, and she continued.

"It's clear, especially by the way you call yourself a sociopath, that in truth that's what you _want_ to think of yourself as. More likely, you're at the exact opposite. Which means my diagnosis is more likely to be intact."

"What was your diagnosis?" He sounded truly interested.

"I never tell a person the diagnosis I give them. In any case, it doesn't really matter, such a label...it is so changeable. Human personality is _fluid_. More than many therapists want to admit. It makes their job easier if they forget you're _evolving_ every _moment_ of your life unless you choose to be still."

A thought came to her, and she delighted in remembering something she'd probably seen on PBS's _NOVA_.

"As a chemist, you know that every atom in the universe is constantly vibrating, never in a state of stagnation – so why should we, creatures that are composed of billions of these atoms, consider any aspect of ourselves to be unchanging and unchangeable?"

She took a sip from her drink again, and, without looking at him, held the remainder out as an offering. He accepted it and drank the remaining quarter of a cup's worth of cool, milky sweetness, save a tiny last drop that, when he returned the glass bottle to her, she coaxed out with the tip of her tongue.

As a symbolic gesture, it seemed to have solidified their good terms.

" _Chico_ , we need more coffee," she said, and he grumbled an agreement. "Remind me to stop when we're not in the middle of this beautiful dark nowhere."

This was more of a mental note, and they spent a few moments in contemplative quiet, the Brit returning to his phone as it flashed with light. After some moments, he quietly observed, "I think you are a rather good social worker, Miss Melendez."

She smiled, but could tell that there was something more in the subtext of what he was saying. "...Um, thank you? But what you mean?"

"Some therapists would benefit to hear you right now."

"Like, yours?"

He was silent for a moment, as if not wanting to admit he'd had one.

"You no longer engage his services though, I guess."

"Never guess, Miss Melendez, only use logic."

"Ok, so I _intuit_ that you no longer have a therapist. Given the information."

"What information is that?" It sounded not as though he was actually interested in justifying the conclusion as much as he was interested in the reasoning behind her conviction. He was distracting her with a superficial tangent. She indulged him, however.

"Um..." She looked at him. "Your body language when I asked 'Like, yours.' Your _phraseology_ : 'some therapists would benefit to hear you right now.' Makes me think you've had some interesting experiences with therapists. The fact that you use clinical terms offhand..."

She shrugged. "I dunno, man. I guess mostly the _dissatisfaction_ you seem to have with them combined with the familiarity you have with the profession. It's clear you knew them _personally_. If we were talking about eye doctors...it'd be the same thing."

A pause ensued, and she sighed. "Was it your parents who sent you or your teachers at school or what?"

He seemed to have regained composure to some degree in hearing her explanation, and he appeared indifferent to the subject of conversation, clearly disassociating his recognition of the fact that it was _himself_ that was being talked about. Instead, he seemed to talk about it as though it were another person, perhaps a case study, perhaps a client.

"While it is really no concern of yours, I think you would respect and appreciate a brief summary of the details, Miss Melendez. In short, there was no small concern or effort on the part of the parents in the situation," he said neutrally, "but these attentions were primarily focused on the sister of the individual, said sister's issues being far more pressing as a relapsing alcoholic. The only focused beating on the individual in question came from one particular veterans-hospital nurse who was a do-gooder, like yourself."

He paused, considering his words carefully. "She was...very fierce. Very compelling. And she gave away the card of a London psychologist. A psychologist who has received very infrequent visits, only in times of significant crisis...like yesterday."

Then his face changed, for as little as he had said, it was clear he had said more than he wished in retrospect, and he turned his head towards the window.


	7. Chapter 7

That was very open of you, sir," said Alé with as gentle, appreciative, and respectful a voice as she could muster. "If you don't mind me asking, how do you feel about the interventions she made?"

The Brit had retracted, his lips thinly pressed together, looking miserable and lonely, and he examined his phone as he waited for a response from whomever it was he was talking to, but as she looked at him she did sense that he might have wanted to be texting someone else.

That he might have wanted to be _talking_ to someone else.

"Ineffective, ultimately," he said with bitterness, "and usually she tends to only be half right. Which means, of course, that she is usually also half wrong. But most ordinary people have similar odds."

"That's not very kind," said Alé, who was less than thrilled at the idea that he probably considered her _ordinary_. But she acknowledged that she had no reason to accept whatever opinions others had of her unless she allowed them to become important to her, so she treated it with a neutral glance.

"It's true," he said with a wave of his hand, dark and angular against the florescent glow of his smartphone screen. "Most people are spectacular idiots."

As such an intuitive person as she was, this thinking-machine Brit's comment struck her funny-bone in an unexpected way, and before she could tell herself to shut her big mouth she was laughing.

"What the world might do without people like you!" she exclaimed after a moment. "People who disavow the things that make us human just as much as our rationality does – people who despise _emotionality_. You need both, mister, if only because rationality keeps you alive, and emotionality makes it worthwhile to _stay_ alive. Otherwise...it's just _staying_. And I'm sure you can understand how that might not be fun."

The comment really seemed to hit home, because as she said this, the Brit withdrew like a mollusk into its shell, folding his legs to his chest, wrapping his long, sinewy arms around them, and burying his face into his knobby knees.

It was disconcerting to see a grown man in such a position, but Alé took it in stride. She'd seen the toughest of the tough in the times of their greatest vulnerability, in jail cells, at their homies' funerals, and as drunk or high as was humanly possible.

"Eh, man, I'm sorry," she said, seeking to make it better, though she knew an apology wouldn't necessarily help this dysfunctional man, "that was not kind or necessary, and I don't know that it was true."

"It was _none_ of those things," he agreed, venom in his voice, though his insistence merely confirmed her suspicions that what she had said resonated more with him than he could admit.

She had to notice, too, that he had _not_ been texting for some while. Fiddling with his phone, making the screen light up and dim down over and over as he checked for text messages, yes, but not technically texting.

However, she was feeling the pull of sleep, and this, augmented by having gotten absorbed in the conversation, was threatening her driving.

"I need coffee," she breathed again, "how 'bout you?"

"Oh, God yes," he asserted, unfolding like a flower at the thought, "and carbohydrates."

"I gotta say, you _do_ look like a man who likes carbs," she said with some amusement. "I guess your brain alone uses well over the average hundred a day."

"I don't eat when I'm on a case," he said, surprising her, "but when it's over, I'm famished."

"Disordered eating habits," she said, then laughed. "But don't worry, I withhold judgment on that, I've never been an 'ordered' eater in my life, either."

"So frequently...I feel like food's not worth the bother."

Alé paused as she looked for a place to get off the freeway. "Thank God, we're at Camarillo already...so wait a minute, you aren't here on a case?"

"Not one worthy of my presence here, no."

"Then a...mundane one?"

"More than mundane. It's ridiculous."

"Mhm." She paused. "And this is concerning the UMQRA group, correct?"

"Your inclination to refer by everything with its initials betrays your long experience in government work."

He suddenly reacted to his phone as if it had rung, picking it up and reading a text message that had noiselessly surfaced on its screen.

"Do you have one of those mosquito ringtones?" Alé asked as they pulled off the freeway.

"It's new. 22 kilohertz," he answered blandly. "It's the upper range of the human ear's capacity. Virtually unhearable. Unless you're trained." He paused in his typing. "How long until we get where we're going?"

"About thirty minutes, just let me please get some tougher caffeine in my system. This stuff I've been drinking is just sugary shit."

They pulled into a gas station and Alé leaped out, flipping a switch to open the gas tank cover.

"You got a credit card?" she demanded, not bothering to look at him as she shoved the nozzle into the tank.

"Oh, how rude of me, I _insist_ that you let me pay for the gas," he replied, hating to be told what to do as much as she did.

"I'll buy you coffee. I'm sure it's crap, but it's something."

"Black, two sugars."

"Got it."

Leaving him with her keys in the ignition, she sprinted into the convenience store, exhilarating at the chance to exercise her muscles a bit.

Returning bearing two piping hot but definitely crappy coffees, she found him leaning against the car, reading her latest issue of _Journal of Adolescent and Gang Intervention in Social Work_.

"Are you an ex-gangmember, then?" he asked, not looking up at her but accepting the coffee she pressed into his hand. He didn't seem to notice how hot or how putrid it was, sipping with undiscerning taste.

**Author's Note:**

> Fanfiction Writers and (non)Celebrities: What Do They Know? Do They Know Things?? Let's Find Out!  
> [Tumblr](https://lady-heliotrope-writes.tumblr.com/)  
> [Ko-Fi](https://ko-fi.com/ladyheliotrope)


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